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Adjusting Your Passers to the
Server
-By Dave Cross
Here's a tip I've started to use with my serve receivers:
We all teach our servers to square themselves to where they want to serve
the ball. When they do
this, the vast majority will point their front foot, (usually the left for
righties), directly at their serving target.
So, why not have your serve receive pattern adjust
to this to get them in the best starting position
and cut down on their lateral movement to the ball?
Assuming you are using a 3 person serve receive formation, the middle girl is designated as the
"quarterback". When she sees the servers alignment, she calls
out the "shift":
-If the server is squared to the six zone, she simply calls "stay", and there
is no shift.
-But, if the server is squared to the one or five zones, she calls out "one
left", or "one right", and all
three passers move accordingly in the direction the server is squared to.
(One = one step)
-Sometimes, it may even be necessary to shift two steps in either direction.
KEYS:
1. The call must be made loudly enough that all the passers can hear
it easily. There is no need
to try and hide the shift from the server-in fact it is better if they do
hear the call, because it
may distract them.
2. If you have a player at the ten foot line one either side, they
need to shift with the call, also.
3. Your passers need to get a feel for how big
of a step to take when shifting to keep their
spacing equal. A few dry runs where you stop them to show them how their
spacing changed when they
take the wrong size step will get them on target with this.
4. The passers must realize that when they shift,
so do their passing zones, as well as the seams
between them.
BENEFITS:
1. Shifting cuts down on the amount of movement to the ball a very
high percentage of the time.
2. It also opens up the area farthest away from
where the server is squared to. This can tempt
the server to try and step away from where she is squared to, or swing away
from the line of her
serving shoulder to try and "cross up" the serve receive pattern, which leads
to more
serving errors by forcing an adjustment in their normal technique. Even if
they can adjust and
serve to the "open space" they will invariably take a little off of the ball
to try and place it
there. Also, when they do this, you are forcing them to serve away from where
they originally
wanted to serve.
3. If your best passer is in the middle of your
formation, it moves her closer to where the
server is attempting to serve, which increases the times she will play the
ball.
4. If you have a weaker passer on the outside
of your formation, and the opponent is trying to
serve to them, it cuts down on the area they have to cover and pass from.
5. Not only can the "shift call" catch the servers
attention and distract them, so can seeing
the movement of the shift.
Note: I do not condone trying to distract a server in the ways we
are all used to seeing. For example,
fans yelling, calling their name or number, etc. But in this case, your players
are employing a strategy,
and if the server lets it distract them they are simply not focused enough
on their own serve. In other
words, the call and shift are not being done to distract the server, but
if they let themselves be distracted,
that is an added benefit for your team, caused by the servers weak mental
focus.
WATCH OUT FOR:
1. Every once in awhile, you'll run into a server who naturally comes
across the ball on contact,
causing it to spin a little to the side and curve in that direction as it
crosses the net. In this
case, your passers must identify this server and adjust their shift accordingly.
This is a very
rare situation that I have only come across two times in the past 20+ seasons,
but just be aware
it is out there!
Good Luck!
-Dave Cross
National Director
Yes I Can Volleyball
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